Surf Safely, Not Stupidly.

You know what's inevitable? Finding infectious crap out in the wild on the internet. I have many a friend/acquaintance that has been infected multiple times and even had their credit card information stolen more than once. Simply put, this should rarely if ever happen. If shopping online with proper procedural knowledge, it will actually be difficult to get your information stolen. 

First, if you use internet explorer... stop it.. just stop it. Chrome and Firefox are incredibly faster and more secure. I suggest Chrome for Windows as Firefox can run be a bit of a resource hog.

Now, once using an acceptable browser, register for an account on Paypal.com, as when a site offers payment through paypal, it is more secure then typing in your card number over and over.

And, for passwords, install LastPass, because if anything malicious is on your computer, mac or pc, it takes no effort to crack the saved passwords within your browser, like when the browser itself asks to save your password. So if you have been using the password saver in the browser, empty and disable it.

Then, install useful extensions (add-on's) to your browser, such as ad-block, which is a must have for not only safe browsing, but significantly less annoying browsing.  (***Edit 5.7.12) But also understand that for websites you love such as good blogs, be kind enough to put them on the white-list of your adblock settings.  The ads on their page contribute to a significant amount of their livelihood and often keep the sites open and free. So if you support a website of any kind, unblock them. 

Here is a list of such extensions for Chrome: 

View Thru is an extension that pops up an entire URL when you hover over a shortened URL. Many such shortened links are just a flat out trick to redirect you to either some sort of ad or a malicious site.

WebOfTrust (WOT) is the most popular, community developed, hyperlink site rating extension that also will pop up a warning if you unknowingly happen upon a malicious site. Another that has been working on the same type of extension is Mcafee Site Advisor but doesn't have as high of ratings as WOT.

Password Fail gives you a warning if a login page stores your passwords in plain text on their server. If they happen to get infected, everyone's information would be just sitting there in the open to be taken. 

KB SSL Enforcer Many sites now have secure encrypted login screens but don't yet send people there by default. Instead of manually having to remember to look if you are putting in your login information on an https:// page instead, this extension you can set up to automatically redirect you to the encrypted login page.

Credit Card Nanny is a must have extension for online shoppers. There are still shopping websites that foolishly take the credit card info you fill in to make a purchase and have it emailed in plain text to the sellers inbox. Of course out in the interwebs there wily thieves preying on ignorant web stores and their clients. 

Trust Guard which is basically WOT for web stores. It puts a store security rating up in the Omnibar (address bar) on Chrome .

So wise up and enjoy browsing and saving money by shopping online, don't fear it, you ninny, and have fun. 

(Source: my late beloved DLS)